Introduction

In contrast to many other Latin American countries Colombia has not
been plagued with military takeovers of the government. Colombia has had
its share of violence but typically the battles have been between different
civilian political factions. In the 19th century and much of the 20th
century the division was between the Liberal and Conservative Parties.
The terms liberal and conservative in the Latin American
context means something quite different than they do in the United States.
Outside of 20th and 21st century U.S. the term liberal means what
conservative means in the U.S. What is meant by conservative
is outside of the U.S. political spectrum. In Latin America conservative
means preserving a special role for the Catholic Church in the society and
the economy. It means preserving the distribution of land ownership even
if the land was acquired by dispossessing previous occupants. Coupled with
the political division on those issues there is the division between the
centrists and the federationists. The centrists want the central government
to have complete control politically even to the point of requiring state
and city officials to be appointed by the central government instead of
being elected by their constituents. The federationists want a degree of
autonomy for the state and city governments. They see the government as
being a convening of elected representatives. The federationists want some
strict limitations on the power of the central government.

Both the Liberal Party (PL) and the Conservative Party (PC) became organized
parties around 1850 after Colombia had been a sovereign nation for about
thirty years. The support for the PL came from the merchants, artisans and
manufacturers. The odd thing is that the merchants of the PL (las golgotas)
favored free trade and the artisans and manufacturers in the PL( los draconianos)
supported protectionism. The PC was supported by the large landowners and
the clergy of the Catholic church. The small landowners tended to support
the Liberal Party. The peasants tended to identify with the political party
of their patrons.

In the early 1850's a liberal constitution was adopted which separated
church and state and gave substantial autonomy to the subregional political
units and limited the power of the central government. There was a
military takeover of the PL-dominated government in 1854 and later a
civil war in which the Liberals won. The Liberal Party controlled the
government which later enacted a new constitution that placed more restrictions
on the power of the central government. The PL expropriated church lands but when
those lands were sold they went to merchants and the wealthy so the
concentration of ownership of land was not reduced but instead was increased.
A radical faction within the PL took power in 1867 and further reduced the
legal power of the central government. The central government was to have
only those powers which were explicitly given in the constitution.

In a backlash against the radicals in the PL the electorate of Colombia
in 1884 voted for the Conservatives. The Conservative president Rafael
Núñez led the legislature to adopt a new constitution in
1886 which gave the presidency strong powers including the appointment,
rather than the election, of departmental (provincial) governors. It was
a major victory for the centrists.

Liberals chafed under the concentration of power in the central government
and eventually split into two factions, the War faction which advocated
armed rebellion against the centrists and the Peace faction which did not.
The War faction of the Liberal Party rebelled three times; in 1893, in 1895 and
finally in what was called the War of a Thousand Days, from 1899 to
1902. The War of a Thousand Days cost a hundred thousand lives but
ultimately failed to overthrow the Conservative Party government.

The horror of the War of a Thousand Days convinced the Conservatives
that cooperation with the Liberals would be necessary and Liberals were
included in the cabinets of the government.

The conservatives continued in power until 1930 when the effects of the
worldwide Great Depression convinced the Colombian electorate of the need
for change. The PL government of Alfonso López Pumarejo enacted
legislation for land reform, recognition of labor unions and public
welfare assistance.

The Liberals continued in power until 1946 when a moderate Conservative
named Mariano Ospina Pérez was elected. Both parties had their
moderate and extremist factions. Pérez was perceived to become
more authoritarian in office and raised fears of what the future would
bring.

In 1948 a prominent Liberal leader, Jorge Eliécer Gaitán,
was assassinated in Bogotá. Riots broke out in Bogotá that
the government was able to suppress only with the deaths of 2,000 and
the destruction of much of the city. The riots and rebellion spread to
the countryside where the government could not contain it and continued
for eighteen years. This period of 1948-1966, known as la violencia,
resulted in two hundred thousand deaths.

Long before the end of la violencia the leaders of the Liberal
and Conservative Parties recognized the need for some political solution
to the problems of Colombia. In 1958 the PC and PL agreed to share
political power in what was called the National Front. Under this
arrangement the two parties would alternate in the control of the
presidency every four years and equally share the numbers of the
appointed and elected offices in government. The National Front arrangement
continued from 1958 to 1974.

Not everyone was happy with the National Front arrangement. Under it
the office of president went not to the choice of the electorate but
instead to the candidate of the party, PC or PL, whose turn it was to
rule. Supporters of third parties, particularly leftist, felt excluded
under the arrangement.

In the 1960's three organization initiated guerilla operations and in
the 1970's they were joined by a fourth:

The Geography of Colombia

The geography of Colombia if not unique is quite unusual. The eastern
60% of the country is lowlands that are part of the Amazon Basin. This
territory is undeveloped and largely unpopulated. Only 2 percent of the
population of Colombia live in this eastern portion. The western
40% is divided north to south by three major mountain chains (cordilleras)
and one minor one (serrania).

The three cordilleras constitute the Andean Highlands region and contains
almost eighty percent (78%) of the population. The ridge lines of these three
cordilleras are depicted in the above map as white lines. White is appropriate
because some of the peaks a permanently covered with snow. Between the
cordilleras flow two major rivers: the Cauca and the Magdalena. On west of
Cordillera Occidental there flow another river, the Atrato.

Besides the Andean Highlands in the western 40% of the country there are
two other regions: the Caribbean Lowlands and the Pacific Lowlands. The
Caribbean Lowlands is where the conjoined Cauca and Magdalena Rivers
empties into the Caribbean. The Caribbean Lowlands contain about 17 percent
of Colombia's population. The Pacific Lowlands, which are not entirely
on the Pacific Coast, contain only 3 percent of the population.

The terrain of Colombia make it relatively costly for the separate regions
to communicate, interact and trade.